Monday, August 20, 2007

Prescriptions painkillers are on the rise: killing pain through out the country. One painkiller to kill the pain; another to kill the pain of the side affects; another pill for something else, and now you can't sleep at night, so you are up way late and have the luxury of watching advertisements for Lunesta. Well, that will solve all your problems!

The amount of five major painkillers sold at retail establishments rose 90 percent between 1997 and 2005, according to an Associated Press analysis of statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration. More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during 2005. This is about enough to give every person in this country some pain killers. Approximately 300 milligrams of tasty pain killing sweetness.Much of this increase can be blamed on the pharmaceutical companies' major increase inadvertising and marketing."Spending on drug marketing has gone from $11 billion in 1997 to nearly $30 billion in 2005, congressional investigators found. Profit margins among the leading companies routinely have been three and four times higher than in other Fortune 500 industries." -AP. With the prices of these prescriptions, everyone involved must be making some money off of them. The pharmaceutical companies profit from making them, and the pay representatives to market them to their doctors, who give out free samples, or prescribe them, and the patient is happy. Who wouldn't be happy with a daily dose of 'hillbilly heroin'?Along with the increase in drug use, drug abuse increases right along side. According to the government, emergency room visits due to drug overdose has increased over 160% since 1995. People are addicted, but people are in pain also. There is a pain killer, however, that is not addictive, and should be free, and available, and will cure many other ailments, along with providing nutrients and renewable resources. This, my friends, is marijuana. Marijuana helps with chronic pain, insomnia, some eating disorders or lack of appetite, and the seeds provide more protein than soybeans. So why can't we just have the plant, instead of wasting resources and pouring them into making countless poisons to 'zombify' the masses (although this would be called 'curing' the sick), and make billions of dollars doing it? Because- BUSH wouldn't be where he is today, if not for the monetary backing of the pharmaceutical company's-that's why!